NYS Writers Institute Announces Spring 2024 Season
By Bethany Bump
ALBANY, N.Y. (Jan. 23, 2024) — The New York State Writers Institute is kicking off its spring season at the University at Albany with more than 30 events featuring writers and creatives who will discuss topics ranging from artificial intelligence and the arts to climate change, homelessness, immigration and other social issues.
This season’s lineup includes craft talks, readings, conversations, film screenings, online workshops and performances, as well as the 4th annual Albany Film Festival on Saturday, April 6. Featured guests include a former Poet Laureate of the United States, three Pulitzer Prize winners, two National Book Award winners, five National Book Award finalists, an Oscar-nominated playwright/actor/director, and one of America’s most acclaimed writers and poets who received the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in 2013.
"As the Writers Institute opens its 41st year of acclaimed programming in 2024, this remarkable spring lineup reinforces our reputation as one of the nation’s preeminent literary organizations," said Paul Grondahl, the Opalka Endowed Director for the Institute. "We have always placed a premium on presenting the highest literary quality, discovering new and diverse voices, and challenging our audiences with conversations about difficult subjects in a spirit of tolerance and respect.”
The spring lineup also celebrates the 180th anniversary of UAlbany’s founding in 1844 with a roster of guests with strong connections to the University, including former Writers Institute writing workshop teacher Elizabeth Benedict; UAlbany faculty members Jennifer Burns, Lynne Tillman, Amina Henry, Shaun Patrick Tubbs and Kyra Gaunt; UAlbany alumni Jennifer Lemak, Molly Guptill Manning, Alice Green and Stephen Soucy; UAlbany staff member Richard Mirabella; and UAlbany emerita professor Lydia Davis.
The season kicks off this Thursday with a visit from 2023 National Book Award finalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Paul Harding, whose new novel This Other Eden is based on the true story of a multiracial community that sought refuge from intolerance on an island off the coast of Maine from 1782 to 1912. Harding will deliver a craft talk at 4:30 p.m. in the Campus Center West Boardroom, followed by a reading and conversation at 7:30 p.m. in the UAlbany Performing Arts Center Recital Hall.
At most events this season, books will be available for purchase and signings will be held following the conversations.
While most events will take place on UAlbany’s Uptown and Downtown campuses, some venture out into the community.
On Feb. 15, the Institute will help mark the launch of a new temporary exhibit at the New York State Museum showcasing Abraham Lincoln’s preliminary draft of the Emancipation Proclamation and an audio recording of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivering a speech on the centennial of that proclamation in 1962. The program will feature poetry, readings and a conversation about the legacy of slavery and emancipation in the U.S. with New York State Poet Patricia Spears Jones, historian and UAlbany Africana Studies lecturer Jennifer Burns, and NYS Museum Curator Jennifer Lemak.
On March 14, civil rights activist Alice Green and historian Amy Godine will discuss the Black history of the Adirondack Mountains in a conversation at the Albany Public Library. Green will read from her new memoir, Outsider: Stories of Growing Up Black in the Adirondacks, about her childhood and young adulthood in the tiny, largely white community of Witherbee, Essex County, while Godine will read from her new book, The Black Woods: Pursuing Racial Justice on the Adirondack Frontier, about Black families who migrated to the Adirondacks in the 1800s.
The Writers Institute is also continuing its tradition of collaborating with area organizations on events.
Local organizations dedicated to assisting the homeless, for example, have partnered with the Institute to bring Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder to campus. Kidder, the author behind the acclaimed nonfiction book, Mountains Beyond Mountains, will join WAMC’s Joe Donahue at Page Hall on March 20 to discuss his new book, Rough Sleepers — the true story of Dr. Jim O’Connell, a Harvard Medical School graduate who created a program to care for Boston’s homeless community.
The Albany Film Festival is also back this spring. The daylong festival will take place Saturday, April 6 in the Campus Center. Throughout the spring semester, classic films with tie-ins to the festival will be screened on select Fridays at Page Hall, starting with the 2005 film adaptation of Lackawanna Blues this Friday at 7 p.m. Ruben Santiago-Hudson, the Tony Award-winning actor, director and playwright who adapted the film from his award-winning play, will be on campus Feb. 5 to deliver the Burian Lecture on Life in the Performing Arts.
All events take place on UAlbany's Uptown and Downtown campuses and are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted. Courtesy parking for Writers Institute events on the Uptown Campus will be available in the State Quad Student Parking Lot one hour prior to and one hour after events.